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WAR FROM THE INSIDE
[Illustration: COLONEL FREDERICK L. HITCHCOCK]
[Illustration:
MONUMENT OF 132D REGIMENT, P. V.
ERECTED BY THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA ON BATTLE-FIELD OF ANTIETAM, MD.
DEDICATED SEPT. 17, 1904
It stands about two hundred yards directly in front of the battle line
upon which this regiment fought, on the side of the famous "Sunken Road"
occupied by the Confederates.
This road has since been widened and macadamized as a government road
leading from "Bloody Lane" towards Sharpsburg.]
WAR FROM THE INSIDE
The Story of the 132nd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry
in the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion
1862-1863
by
FREDERICK L. HITCHCOCK
Late Adjutant and Major
132nd Pennsylvania Volunteers.
Published by authority of the 132nd Regiment Pennsylvania
Volunteer Infantry Association.
Press of J. B. Lippincott Company
Philadelphia
1904
Copyright, 1903
by F. L. Hitchcock
PREFACE
This narrative was originally written without the least idea of
publication, but to gratify the oft-repeated requests of my children.
During the work, the ubiquitous newspaper reporter learned of it, and
persuaded me to permit its publication in a local paper, where it
appeared in weekly instalments. Since then the demand that I should put
it in more permanent form has been so persistent and wide-spread, that I
have been constrained to comply, and have carefully revised and in part
rewritten it. I have endeavored to confine myself to my own
observations, experiences, and impressions, giving the inner life of the
soldier as we experienced it. It was my good fortune to be associated
with one of the best bodies of men who took part in the great Civil War;
to share in their hardships and their achievements. For this I am
profoundly grateful. Their story is my own. If these splendid
gray-headed "boys"--those who have not yet passed the mortal
firing-line--shall find some pleasure in again tramping over that
glorious route, and recalling the historic scenes, and if the younger
generation shall gather inspiration for a like patriotic dedication to
country and to liberty, I shall be more than paid for my imperfect
work. In conclusion, I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to Major
James W. Oakford, son of our intrepid colonel, who was the first of the
regiment to fall, and to Mr. Lewis B. Stillwell, son of that brave and
splendid officer, Captain Richard Stillwell, Company K, who was wounded
and disabled at Fredericksburg, for constant encouragement in the
preparation of the work and for assistance in its publication.
SCRANTON, PA., April 5, 1904.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--FIRST LESSONS; OR, DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE 13
II.--THE ORGANIZATION AND MAKE-UP OF THE FIGHTING
MACHINE CALLED "THE ARMY" 22
III.--ON THE MARCH 35
IV.--DRAWING NEAR THE ENEMY--BATTLE OF SOUTH MOUNTAIN--PRELIMINARY
SKIRMISHES 46
V.--THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM 55
VI.--THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM--CONTINUED 68
VII.--HARPER'S FERRY AND THE LEESBURG AND HALLTOWN EXPEDITIONS 79
VIII.--FROM HARPER'S FERRY TO FREDERICKSBURG 94
IX.--THE FREDERICKSBURG CAMPAIGN 108
X.--THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG--CONTINUED 120
XI.--WHY FREDERICKSBURG WAS LOST 132
XII.--LOST COLORS RECOVERED 141
XIII.--THE WINTER AT FALMOUTH 158
XIV.--THE WINTER AT FALMOUTH--CONTINUED 179
XV.--THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE 200
XVI.--THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE--CONTINUED 220
XVII.--THE MUSTER OUT AND HOME AGAIN 239
APPENDIX 251
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
After the lapse of more than forty years, I hardly hoped to be able to
publish pictures of all our officers, and have been more than pleased to
secure so many. The others, I regret to say, could not be obtained. The
youthful appearance of these officers will be remarked. All, I believe,
with the exception of Colonel Oakford were below thirty years, and most
between twenty and twenty-five.
PAGE
Colonel Frederick L. Hitchcock _Frontispiece_
The Monument _Facing title-page_
Groups of Captains 16
Group, Chaplain and Surgeons 22
Colonel Charles Albright 44
Colonel Vincent M. Wilcox 50
Colonel Richard A. Oakford 59
The Silenced Confederate Battery 62
The Sunken Road 71
Field Hospital 76
Groups of Lieutenants 120
Major Frederick L. Hitchcock 167
Don and I, and glimpse of Camp of Hancock's Division, Falmouth, Va. 171
Reunion 132d Regiment, P. V., 1891, on Battle-field of Antietam. 200
WAR FROM THE INSIDE
CHAPTER I
FIRST LESSONS; OR, DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE
I was appointed adjutant of the One Hundred and Thirty-second Regiment,
Pennsylvania Volunteers, by our great war Governor, Andrew G. Curtin, at
the solicitation of Colonel Richard A. Oakford, commanding the regiment,
my commission dating the 22d day of August, 1862. I reported for duty to
Colonel Oakford at Camp Whipple, where the regiment was then encamped,
on the 3d day of September, 1862. This was immediately following the
disasters of "Chantilly" and "Second Bull Run," and as I passed through
Washington to Camp Whipple, I found the greatest excitement prevailing
because of these reverses, and a general apprehension for the safety of
the capital in consequence. The wildest rumors were abroad concerning
the approach of the victorious rebel troops, and an alarm amounting
almost to a panic existed. Being without a horse or other means of
transportation, I was obliged to make my way, valise in hand, on foot
from Washington over the "long bridge" across the Potomac, to Camp
Whipple, some two miles up the river nearly opposite Georgetown. From
the wild rumors floating about Washington, I did not know but I should
be captured bag and baggage before reaching camp. Undertaking this trip
under those circumstances, I think, required almost as much nerve as
"real work" did later on.
Getting beyond the long bridge there were abundant evidences of the
reported disasters. Straggling troops, army wagons, etc., were pouring
in from the "front" in great disorder. I reached camp about three
o'clock P.M. and found Colonel Oakford out with the regiment on
battalion drill. An hour later I reported to his office (tent) as ready
for duty. The colonel had been a lifelong personal friend, and I was
received, as I expected, most cordially. I was assigned quarters, and a
copy of the daily routine orders of camp was placed in my hands, and my
attention specially called to the fact that the next "order of business"
was "dress parade" at six o'clock. I inquired the cause of this special
notice to me, and was informed that I was expected to officiate as
adjutant of the regiment at that ceremony. I pleaded with the colonel to
be allowed a day or so in camp to see how things were done before
undertaking such difficult and important duties; that I knew absolutely
nothing about any part of military service; had never served a day in
any kind of military work, except in a country fire company; had never
seen a dress parade of a full regiment in my life, and knew nothing
whatever about the duties of an adjutant.
My pleadings were all in vain. The only reply I received was a copy of
the "Army Regulations," with the remark that I had two hours in which to
study up and master the details of dress parade, and that I could not
learn my duties any easier nor better than by actual practice; that my
condition was no different from that of my fellow officers; that we were
all there in a camp of instruction learning our duties, and there was
not a moment to lose. I then began to realize something of the magnitude
of the task which lay before me. To do difficult things, without knowing
how; that is, to learn how in the doing, was the universal task of the
Union volunteer officer. I took up my "Army Regulations" and attacked
the ceremony of dress parade as a life and death matter. Before my two
hours were ended, I could repeat every sentence of the ceremony
verbatim, and felt that I had mastered the thing, and was not going to
my execution in undertaking my duties as adjutant. Alas for the frailty
of memory; it failed me at the crucial moment, and I made a miserable
spectacle of myself before a thousand officers and men, many of them old
friends and acquaintances, all of whom, it seemed to me, were specially
assembled on that occasion to witness my debut, and see me get "balled
up." They were not disappointed. Things tactically impossible were
freely done during that ceremony. Looking back now upon that scene, from
the long distance of forty years, I see a green country boy undertaking
to handle one thousand men in the always difficult ceremony of a dress
parade. (I once heard Governor Hartranft, who attained the rank of a
major-general during the war, remark, as he witnessed this ceremony,
that he had seen thousands of such parades, and among them all, only one
that he considered absolutely faultless.) I wonder now that we got
through it at all. Think of standing to give your first command at the
right of a line of men five hundred abreast, that is, nearly one
thousand feet in length, and trying to make the men farthest away hear
your small, unused, and untrained voice. I now can fully forgive my
failure. The officers and men were considerate of me, however, and,
knowing what was to be done, went through with it after a fashion in
spite of my blunders.
The regiment was one of the "nine months'" quota; it had been in the
service barely two weeks at this time. It was made up of two companies,
I and K, from Scranton (Captains James Archbald, Company I, and Richard
Stillwell, Company K), Company A, Danville, Pa.; B, Factoryville; C,
Wellsboro and vicinity; E, Bloomsburg; F and G, Mauch Chunk, and H,
Catawissa. It numbered, officers and men, about one thousand. Its field
officers were Colonel Richard A. Oakford, Scranton; Lieutenant-Colonel
Vincent M. Wilcox, Scranton; Major Charles Albright, Mauch Chunk; staff,
Frederick L. Hitchcock, first lieutenant and adjutant, Scranton; Clinton
W. Neal, first lieutenant and quartermaster, Bloomsburg; Rev.
Schoonmaker, first lieutenant and chaplain, Scranton.
The transition from home life to that of an army in the field can only
be appreciated from a stand-point of actual experience. From a
well-ordered, well-cooked meal, served at a comfortable table with the
accessories of home, howsoever humble, to a "catch as catch can" way of
getting "grub," eating what, and when and where, you are fortunate
enough to get to eat; and from a good, comfortable bed, comfortably
housed in a comfortable home, to a blanket "shake down" under the
beautiful sky, mark some of the features of this transition.
[Illustration: CAPT. MARTIN M. BROBST CO. H]
[Illustration: CAPT. WARNER H. CARNOCHAN CO. D]
[Illustration: CAPT. GEO. W. WILHELM CO. F]
[Illustration: CAPT. SMITH W. INGHAM CO. B]
[Illustration: CAPT. CHAS. M'DOUGAL CO. C]
[Illustration: CAPT. RICHARD STILLWELL CO. K]
[Illustration: CAPT. JAMES ARCHBALD, JR. CO. I]
[Illustration: CAPT. CHARLES C. NORRIS CO. A]
[Illustration: CAPT. JACOB D. LACIAR CO. F]
[Illustration: CAPT. JACOB B. FLOYD CO. K]
[Illustration: CAPT. ROBERT A. ABBOTT CO. G]
Another feature is the utter change in one's individual liberty. To be
no longer the arbiter of your own time and movements, but to have it
rubbed into you at every turn that you are a very small part of an
immense machine, whose business is to march and fight; that your every
movement is under the control of your superior officers; that, in fact,
you have no will of your own that can be exercised; that your
individuality is for the time sunk, is a trial to an American freeman
which patriotism alone can overcome. Not the least feature of this
transition is the practical obliteration of the Lord's day. This is a
great shock to a Christian who has learned to love the Lord's day and
its hallowed associations. Routine duty, the march, the fighting, all go
right on, nothing stops for Sunday.
On the morning after reaching camp I had the pleasure of seeing
Major-General John Pope, who commanded the Union forces in the recent
battles of Chantilly and Second Bull Run, and his staff, riding past
camp into Washington. He hailed us with a cheery "Good-morning" in reply
to our salute. He did not look like a badly defeated general, though he
undoubtedly was--so badly, indeed, that he was never given any command
of importance afterwards.
On Saturday, September 6, we received orders to join the Army of the
Potomac--again under the command of "Little Mac"--at Rockville, Md.,
distant about eighteen miles. This was our first march. The day was
excessively hot, and Colonel Oakford received permission to march in the
evening. We broke camp about six o'clock P.M. It was a lovely moonlight
night, the road was excellent, and for the first six miles the march
was a delight. We marched quite leisurely, not making over two miles an
hour, including rests, nevertheless the last half of the distance was
very tiresome, owing to the raw and unseasoned condition of our men, and
the heavy load they were carrying. We reached the bivouac of the grand
Army of the Potomac, of which we were henceforth to be a part, at about
three o'clock the next morning. Three miles out from the main camp we
encountered the outpost of the picket line and were duly halted. The
picket officer had been informed of our coming, and so detained us only
long enough to satisfy himself that we were all right.
Here we encountered actual conditions of war with all its paraphernalia
for the first time. Up to this time we had been playing at war, so to
speak, in a camp of instruction. Now we were entering upon the thing
itself, with all its gruesome accessories. Everything here was business,
and awful business, too. Here were parks of artillery quiet enough just
now, but their throats will speak soon enough, and when they do it will
not be the harmless booming of Fourth of July celebrations. Here we pass
a bivouac of cavalry, and yonder on either side the road, in long lines
of masses, spread out like wide swaths of grain, lie the infantry behind
long rows of stacked guns. Here were upward of seventy-five thousand
men, all, except the cordon of pickets, sound asleep. In the midst of
this mighty host the stillness was that of a graveyard; it seemed almost
oppressive.
Halting the regiment, Colonel Oakford and I made our way to the
head-quarters of Major-General Sumner, commanding the Second Army Corps,
to whom the colonel was ordered to report. We finally found him asleep
in his head-quarters wagon. A tap on the canvas top of the wagon quickly
brought the response, "Hello! Who's there? What's wanted?"
Colonel Oakford replied, giving his name and rank, and that his regiment
was here to report to him, according to orders.
"Oh, yes, colonel, that is right," replied the general. "How many men
have you?"
Receiving the colonel's answer, General Sumner said:
"I wish you had ten times as many, for we need you badly. Glad you are
here, colonel. Make yourselves as comfortable as you can for the rest of
the night, and I will assign you to your brigade in the morning."
Here was a cordial reception and hospitality galore. "Make yourselves
comfortable"--in Hotel "Dame Nature!" Well, we were all weary enough to
accept the hospitality. We turned into the adjacent field, "stacked
arms," and in a jiffy were rolled up in our blankets and sound asleep.
The mattresses supplied by Madame Nature were rather hard, but her rooms
were fresh and airy, and the ceilings studded with the stars of glory.
My last waking vision that night was a knowing wink from Jupiter and
Mars, as much as to say, "sleep sweetly, we are here."
The morning sun was well up before we got ourselves together the next
morning. The "reveille" had no terrors for us greenhorns then. We found
ourselves in the midst of a division of the bronzed old Army of the
Potomac veterans. They were swarming all over us, and how unmercifully
they did guy us! A regiment of tenderfeet was just taffy for those
fellows. Did our "Ma's know we were out?" "Get off those purty duds."
"Oh, you blue cherub!" etc., etc., at the same time accepting (?)
without a murmur all the tobacco and other camp rarities they could
reach.
We were soon visited by Brigadier-General Nathan Kimball, a swarthy,
grizzly-bearded old gentleman, with lots of fire and energy in his eyes.
He told the colonel our regiment had been assigned to his brigade. He
directed the colonel to get the regiment in line, as he had something to
say to the men, after which he would direct us where to join his troops.
General Kimball commanded a brigade which had achieved a great
reputation under McClellan in his West Virginia campaign, and it had
been named by him the "Gibraltar brigade." It had also been through the
Peninsular and Second Bull Run campaigns. It had comprised the Fourth
and Eighth Ohio, Fourteenth Indiana and Seventh West Virginia regiments,
all of which had been reduced by hard service to mere skeleton
regiments. The Fourth Ohio had become so small as to require its
withdrawal from the army for recuperation, and our regiment was to take
its place.
To step into the shoes of one of these old regiments was business,
indeed, for us. Could we do it and keep up our end? It was certainly
asking a great deal of a two weeks' old regiment. But it was the making
of us. We were now a part of the old Gibraltar brigade. Our full address
now was "One Hundred and Thirty-second Pennsylvania Volunteers, First
Brigade, Third Division, Second Army Corps, Army of the Potomac." Our
own reputation we were now to make. We were on probation in the
brigade, so to speak. These veterans were proud, and justly so, of
their reputation. What our relation to that reputation was to be, we
could see was a mooted question with them. They guyed us without measure
until the crucial test, the "baptism of fire," had been passed. This
occurred just ten days later, at the battle of Antietam, the greatest
battle of the war thus far, where for four bloody hours we held our
section of the brigade line as stanch as a rock. Here we earned our
footing. Henceforth we belonged to them. There was never another
syllable of guying, but in its place the fullest meed of such praise and
comradeship as is born only of brave and chivalrous men.